About Us

Claremont's Mission

Michael Pack
President

The mission of the Claremont Institute is to teach the practical application of the principles of the American Founding to the next generation of Conservative leaders, and to build them into a community dedicated to preserving constitutional government.

Winning the War of Ideas

The Founders believed that the natural and God-given rights of man were fixed and universal. Combining this understanding of human nature with American traditions and circumstances, they created the freest, most just government the world has ever seen.

The Progressives rejected the Founders’ understanding and asserted a new, ever-evolving conception of man, matched with a new ever-expanding government.

Progressive political success over the last century is based on winning the philosophical argument. Conservatives have been losing this battle of ideas. That is where the Claremont Institute fulfills its essential role. We provide the philosophical foundations that justify conservative policies.

Changing the Terms of the Debate

Think of us as a post-graduate school with a very select student body—the smartest, most talented, and promising young conservatives coming out of our universities, graduate schools, and law schools. You don’t need many. If you can reach a few, the right few, you can change the terms of our national debate and the course of our country. Our graduates have been growing in influence over 30 years. Many of them now hold important positions in Congress, in universities, at the top think tanks in Washington, and as clerks for the Supreme Court.

Doing More

With your support, we will continue to build a bigger, better school—expanding our student body, deepening the curriculum, and increasing alumni support; expanding our Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence; adding faculty, and increasing faculty publications; giving more reach and impact to the Claremont Review of Books and our video series, The American Mind.

“Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.” – A. Lincoln

A free people, the American people, will do the right thing if they understand what is at stake. Political and intellectual leaders need to point the way. That is the work of the Claremont Institute: to build a community of thinkers and doers who understand the principles on which America is founded and will lead us back to a politics that is faithful to those principles.